The third and final presidential debate in this 2016 election season unfolded at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas Wednesday night, with Chris Wallace of Fox News handling the task of moderator with aplomb. He kept the candidates on the issues — and kept the audience in check as well.

GOP candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton sparred on everything from immigration to foreign policy to abortion. The debate’s biggest competition on TV came from the fourth game of baseball’s National League Championship Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs — a blowout for the Cubs, by the way, who beat the Dodgers 10-2.

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There was no NFL game to try to lure away viewers, and maybe at least partly as a result of that, viewership for this third and final debate was up — according to numbers reported by Variety and The Hollywood Reporter — from the second debate. That second one, of course, went up against TV’s top-rated prime-time program, “NBC Sunday Night Football.”

Debate No. 3 pulled in 71.6 million viewers. The second debate delivered 66.5 million viewers; the first drew 84 million, per Nielsen Media Research.

The viewership numbers mean the third debate ranks as the fourth-largest audience for a presidential debate ever. Fox News drew the largest audience of the night, with 11.3 million total viewers.

Related: Big Ratings for First Presidential Debate

The Nielsen figures showed that the biggest TV audience for Wednesday’s debate could be found in two Florida cities — Fort Myers and West Palm Beach.

[lz_table title=”Third Debate Ratings History” source=”TV Newser”]Viewership,

2012: 59.2 million (Obama-Romney),
2008: 56.5 million (Obama-McCain),
2004: 51.2 million (Bush-Kerry),
2000: 37.7 million (Gore-Bush),
1992: 66.9 million (Bush-Clinton-Perot),
[/lz_table]

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On social media, there were many exchanges that intrigued and delighted viewers. On Twitter, the three top moments of the debate were the discussion of women, Trump’s comments that he might not accept the election results, and the “puppet” exchange.

Related: Big-League Puppets, Bad Hombres

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